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“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” ― Paul Krugman

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Hi, I'm Bret. I'm a very Progressive Liberal. I believe in the truth behind science and mathematics. I believe supposed "creationists" are just too ignorant to understand actual science, and fall back to their magic storybook because real science is too hard for their itsy-bitsy lizard brains. I believe in equality for all people; straight, gay, bi, trans, white, black, brown it does not matter. We are all humans on this Earth for a limited time. Celebrate diversity and enjoy with other's bring to your life. End of story. ;-)

Now that Glenn Beck's internal organs have decided, like a Michele Bachmann staff member, "Get me the fuck away from this crazy fucker" and rebelled against their host body, it is perhaps a good time to beat him while he's down.

On his radio show yesterday, before his appendix went rogue on the rest of his abdomen, Beck offered a simple excuse as to why conservative Doug Hoffman lost to Democrat Bill Owens in the NY-23 congressional race: Hoffman's a poin. Beck said, "He is not electric at all...I like him, but he is not, he's not flashy. He's an accountant eight weeks ago that nobody even knew, a complete unknown." And then Beck repeats this over and over, that Hoffman is an accountant who was "double-teamed" by Owens and Republican drop-out Dede Scozzafava.

To be fair, Beck never assumed Hoffman was going to win. On his TV show on Tuesday, he said, "Hoffman wins or loses, it doesn't matter." Because he sees that accountant who couldn't answer a question about local issues as a harbinger of things to come. "If the political parties don't hold themselves accountable, don't stop the out-of-control spending, those who love me, those who hate me, those who love Sarah Palin, and quite frankly, those who would like to put her in a cave with a really hungry grizzly bear will vote all of you out," he offered.

His erotic ursine fantasies about Palin aside, there comes a point when you actually break down how a Beck rant progresses where you realize that not only does he not know where he's going, he doesn't give a flying fuck. Because earlier, in that same rant, he said, "I mean, I really don't care about local politics all that much." And, since Hoffman took after the man he called his "mentor," it's another reason Hoffman lost. Not because Bill Owens brought the non-accountant thunder and excitement, but because he actually gave a shit about the district. (And, you know, lived there.)

But none of this matters to Beck. He says as much. All that matters is the imposition of his deranged 9/12er ideology, a political philosophy that's closer to anarchy than Emma Goldman could have ever dreamed. Beck doesn't even give a fuck if he knows who is running. From his radio show, regarding the New York City mayoral race: "Sarah, what's the name of the guy that [Bloomberg] was running against? Do you even know?" When he's told it's Bill Thompson, he responds in what might be a racist dig, "I thought it was Robinson. I had no idea." On Tuesday, on his TV show, he sputtered, "Christie -- what's his face -- running for governor there in New Jersey."...(Remainder.)

In aggressively promoting Rep. Michele Bachmann's November 5 anti-health care reform rally on Capitol Hill, Fox News has chosen to associate itself with the offensive and extremist rhetoric emanating from that event. This rhetoric includes the disturbing signs -- such as one of a pile of Holocaust victims' bodies captioned "National Socialist Health Care, Dachau, Germany - 1945" -- displayed at the event.

Anti-reform rally featured extremist images

"National Socialist Health Care, Dachau, Germany - 1945" From a blog post by the Center for American Progress' Matthew Yglesias:

The right-wing seniors' group 60 Plus has put together a new ad opposing health care reform. Instead of providing seniors with the correct information that health care reform will benefit them and their families, 60 Plus chose to use scare tactics to inspire America's seniors to fight progressive health care reform....(Remainder.)

Following an attack that conservatives previewed prior to the elections, Fox News and other right-wing media have seized on gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey to baselessly declare, in Dick Morris' words, that the results were a "deathblow to Obamacare" and have argued that the election should send a message to moderate Democrats. But exit polls do not support these claims, showing that in both states, the voters who cited health care as a top concern sided with the Democrat in the race....(Remainder.)

In a teaser Tuesday for her upcoming interview with former Vice President Al Gore, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow revealed that she had asked Gore about his 2000 running-mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, who has been threatening to break with the Democratic caucus and filibuster any health care reform bill which includes a public option,

"Do you have any continuing relationship with him?" Maddow wanted to know. "Do you regret the sort of turbo-boost you gave to his career ... given how he has changed in his politics?"

"We're still friends," Gore replied, "and he was right and forceful on many of the issues that I felt were central, including global warming."

"I disagree with him on a lot of the issues that have become more prominent since then," Gore went on, "but I would urge people to wait until the denouement of this health care debate to see where it falls out. Because I do believe that Harry Reid is going to be successful in passing it fairly soon."

Despite Gore's optimism, Sen. Reid has not yet brought a final Senate version of health care reform to the floor, and ABC news reported on Tuesday that senior Congressional Democrats say "it is highly unlikely that a health care reform bill will be completed this year." ...(Remainder.)

Here's the thing - back in the day, pharmaceuticals making vaccines needed a living medium in which to grow cultures, something that was cheap because they needed to make a lot. Something like... eggs! The FDA not only approved this process for flu vaccines, but also vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, and rabies. And the thing is, once the FDA approves a particular process and materials for a drug, if you want to update the process and/or materials, you have to start all over with the FDA approval process. That's expensive, especially if you have to pay off the research and development costs accrued.

Today the problem is that no large pharmaceutical firms want to get involved in vaccine production because of the time and cost involved. Many of our vaccines come from overseas plants today. That's part of the reason why the production of H1N1 vaccine was delayed, but to be clear, this is more about an overworked and underappreciated FDA than the need for new production facilities....(Remainder.)

Chris Matthews asks Eric Cantor about Bob McDonnell trying to move away from the right and presenting himself as some sort of moderate in the Virginia governor's race and when Cantor tries to say he wasn't running away from his "conservative values" Matthews asks Cantor why McDonnell didn't want Palin to campaign for him.

Matthews: Let me ask you about the big question here for you tonight. McDonnell…let’s put a real prize around him. I think McDonnell’s great claim to fame is he ran a positive campaign. The other guy was going after his term papers from 30 years ago and McDonnell talked about his daughter’s fighting for the U.S. as a servicewoman over seas on Iraq and a Norte Dame graduate, as a R.O.T.C. person—I thought he really sold the positive and that’s why he won.

Cantor: Well, I agree with you that his campaign was incredibly well run and the message was positive and I think it does say something about the voters of Virginia. They want to have a better prospect for the future and Bob campaigned and focused on jobs. It was clearly an economic message that won the day here in Virginia. And when you look at where people’s minds are here 85% of the people are concerned about the economy. They’re looking for another way. They’re rejecting the policies coming out of the Congress and the White House towards the economy. So it was, you’re right, a very positive agenda for the future that Bob McDonnell won the day on.

Matthews: Why did Bob McDonnell keep Sarah Palin out of the state? He let her use the robo-calls but no reference to him personally. Why would you…I have a theory that Virginia may not be a liberal state and certainly never will be probably, but it’s certainly not a whacko right wing state either. And I don’t think it would ever go for a Sarah Palin over a Barack Obama, but I may be wrong. In lousy economic conditions anything’s possible.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Employers for a Healthy Economy coalition has released a new anti-health care reform ad that misleads viewers into thinking Democratic proposals will endanger their jobs. As SEIU points out below, in reality, the legislation would benefit small businesses, the national economy, and individual Americans across the country....(Remainder.)

During a November 4, 2009 appearance on Fox News, Rep. Joe Wilson falsely claimed cap-and-trade legislation in front of Congress would increase costs by over $3,000 per family. Contrary to Wilson's statement, legislation increasing our investment in clean energy technologies would create jobs in every state and help America become more energy independent, all for less than a quarter a day....(Remainder.)

In time, it seems to happen to all older houses, no matter how well tended they may be.

All manner of parasites, vermin, roaches, rats, worms and termites find their way into the building. Long before they're detected, they infiltrate the walls, the floors, the roofs – and then chew their way into the structure, the supporting beams and the very foundation of the house itself. Silently, surreptitiously, whole communities of invaders make places for themselves, hidden but thriving, totally unknown by the homeowner.

Then, in time, tell-tale signs are seen. Little droppings, discolored trails, proliferating piles of residue appear in corners, on tabletops, little hanging sacs from ceilings – alarming evidence that the grand old dwelling has been invaded. Decidedly unwelcome creatures have made this place their home, and by their very existence will eventually destroy the house and bring it to ruin.

What can be done, when you learn that your house has already been invaded?

Well, the tried and true remedy is tenting.

Experts come in, actually envelope the whole dwelling in a giant tent – and send a very powerful fumigant, lethal to the varmints and unwelcome creatures, into every nook and cranny of the house. Done thoroughly, every last destructive insect or rodent is sent to varmint hell – and in a day or two, the grand house is habitable again.

I believe – figuratively, but in a very real way – we need to tent the White House!

For reasons only he can explain, the current occupant has purposely brought a whole flock of social and political voracious varmints with him into our House. He doesn't own it; he hasn't even rented it; we the people have simply given him the keys and invited him to live there for four years, making it convenient to serve us better, to carry out our expressed wishes for our country. ...

Right-wing media figures enthusiastically endorsed and boosted the failed Conservative Party candidacy of Doug Hoffman in the race to fill a vacant seat in New York's 23rd Congressional District, with several of them hosting Hoffman on their radio or television shows. Media figures who boosted Hoffman include Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Mike Huckabee, Michelle Malkin, and Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com....(Remainder.)